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REV. WILLIAM BUTLER, D.D. 


The 
India Mission 


OF THE 


METHODIST EPISCOPAL 
CHOURGH 


BY 
REV. JEFFERSON <E: SCOTT D:D: 


Presiding Elder of the Ajmere District, India 


THE MISSIONARY SOCIETY 
OF THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH 
OPEN DOOR EMERGENCY COMMISSION 
150 Fifth Avenue, New York 


PRICE, TEN CENTS 


Dublin, Ireland, January 30, 1818, and died at Old 

Orchard, Maine, August 18, 1899. Early points of 
contact with mission interests are found in his school 
course in a mission seminary at Dublin, in circuit work 
under the Rev. James Lynch, who had been associated 
with Dr. Coke in launching the Wesleyan India Mission, 
and in a sermon by Dr. Durbin heard in Dublin. From 
his later pastorate in the United States he responded to 
the call of Dr. Durbin for a founder and superintendent 
of the India Mission of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
and with his wife arrived in Calcutta in September, 1856. 
The mutiny of 1857 interrupted his work in Bareilly, lead- 
ing him to make another beginning at Naini Tal, where 
he found refuge: but Bareilly became the center from 
which the India Mission developed. With great execu- 
tive force and success Dr. Butler directed the growing 
mission till the year 1864, when he resigned his superin- 
tendency, on account of impaired health, and in 1865 
returned to the United States. During the six years from 
1873 to 1879 he founded the Mexico Mission. Dr. and Mrs. 
Butler revisited the India Mission in 1883, and were 
given a welcome most touching in its disclosure of the 
wonderful results of their labors. 


[oo REV. WILLIAM BUTLER, D.D., was born in 


(Revised Edition Printed in May, 1906) 


INDIA MISSION 


THE FIELD 


India is one of the most remarkable countries in the 

world. It is distinguished for its geographical position and 

for its ancient civilization and literature. To it 

Greatness of belong hoary systems of religion and philosophy, 
the Field and very ancient customs and traditions. It 
contains a vast population and a variety of na- 


VIEW OF THE HIMALAYAS 


tionalities and languages, and has wonderful historical con- 
nections and race associations. All these combine to make 
it one of the greatest of mission fields, and worthy of the 
evangelistic effort of the Christian Church. 


India, named from the river Indus, contains an area of 
1,574,460 square miles, and, excluding Russia, is as large as 
Europe, or as that part of the United States lying 
Area and east of the Rocky Mountains. It is triangular in 
Coast Line shape, the great Himalayas forming the base, and 
the Indian Ocean and the Bay of Bengal the two 
sides. Each side of this triangle is about 1,900 miles long, 
and the greatest length and breadth of the land also is about 
1,900 miles. It extends from the eighth to the thirty-fifth 
parallel of north latitude. It has a coast line of 3,600 miles, 

or one mile of coast to each 416 square miles of area. 

In physical structure, India is made up of four highland 
systems, the Himalayas, the Vindhyas, and the West and the 

East Ghats; one great plain, the Indo-Gangetic plain, 

Physical and one vast plateau, the Deccan. India has, in pro- 

Divisions portion to its size, more rivers that flow into the 

sea than any other country in Asia. These may be 

divided into two systems: that of the great northern plain, 

to which belong the Indus, the Ganges and the Brahma- 

putra; and that of the southern plateau, which has on the 

western slope the Narbada and the Tapti, and on the eastern 

slope the Mahanadi, the Godavary, the Kistna and the 
Cauvery. 

Into this great triangle are packed one-fifth of the popu- 

lation of the globe. More than two hundred millions of 
Hindus, sixty millions of Mohammedans, ten mil- 
Population lions of Aborigines, and thirty-five million other 
make up this vast population. The Ganges valley 
has an average of 500 to the square mile, and, in some parts, 
as high as 934 to the square mile are found. The average 

for the whole of India is 185. 

More than a million square miles of India’s territory is 
ruled directly by the Crown through a Viceroy, whose capi- 
tal is Calcutta. The rest is divided among about one hun- 
dred and fifty feudatory states, of which. twenty are in 
Rajputana, and sixty-four are in Central India, and of the 
others Kashmir, Gujarat and Haidarabad are chief. The 
territorial divisions of the British Provinces are Bengal, 


6 


~ 


Northwest Provinces and Oudh, Punjab, Central Provinces, 

Assam, Bombay, Madras, and British Burma, all of which 
Glenda divisions are shown on the map. India has under- 
gone so many changes in its long history, so many 
conquerors have overrun it, so many empires have 
arisen and passed away that the land is full of 
historic places and cities which retain the memories of 
departed greatness and the remains of former noted buildings. 
Among these are such cities as Delhi, the seat of the Mogul 


Municipal 
Features 


THE TAJ MAHAL 


power ; Agra, the home of the matchless Taj Mahal ; 
Amritsar, the center of the Sikh religion ; Meerut, mark- 
ing the beginning of the Sepoy rebellion ; and Calicut, 
the first city visited by Vasco da Gama, in 1498. India, 
as shown by the census of 1901, possesses eighty-three cities 
that have more than 50,000 inhabitants, and of these thirty- 
one have more than 100,000. The six largest cities are : Cal- 
cutta, 1,125,400; Bombay, 776,006 ; Madras, 509,346 ; Hai- 
darabad, 448.466 ; Lucknow, 264,049, and Benares, 209,331. 


i 


Of course a country extending over thirty degrees of Jati- 
tude, and possessing such vast chains of lofty mountains, 
and washed on two sides by the sea, must possess a 
Climate variety of climate. And such is the case in India. 
The heat ranges-from the “ furnace blast,” in May and 

June, at Agra, to intense cold on the high plateaus. The 
average summer temperature in some places is 95 degrees 
in the shade, and at places like Jacobabad, in the northwest, 
it rises as high as 115 degrees in the shade, while in many 
places during the hot months the thermometer registers 
150 and 160 degrees in the sun. In estimating the climate 
of India four conditions must be kept in view: namely, the 
latitude, the altitude, nearness to the desert, and nearness 
to the sea. The slopes of the Himalayas have a cool climate. 
At Utakamand, in the Nilgherries, the elevation and the 
sea breezes keep the summer temperature down to 60 de- 
grees. The country south of the Satpura Mountains is cooler 
than the valleys of the Indus and the Ganges, and the east 
coast is hotter than the west. Tne year may be divided into 
three seasons, the hot, wet and cold. The hot season lasts 
from March to June; the wet season from June to October; 
and the cold season from October to March. The 
Rainfall rainfall in parts of India is greater than any other 
place on the globe. The water brought up from the 

sea by the southwest monsoon, or periodical wind blowing 
off the Arabian Sea, from July to October is enormous. On 
the Malabar coast the annual rainfall sometimes amounts 
to 480 inches, while in Assam as much as 600 inches have 
fallen in a single year. The Indo-Gangetic valley greatly 
affects the rainfall of India. Up and down this valley, at 
different seasons, sweeps the monsoon, bringing rain from 
the Bay of Bengal and elsewhere to the fruitful plains of 
northern India. The rainy season does not occur at the 
Same time all over India. .‘ When the great heat over the 
plateau of Thibet has turned the northeast trades into south- 
west monsoons, the Malabar coast has its rainy season—that 
is, from April to October. But when the ordinary north- 
east trades are blowing,—that is, in winter—they bring rain 


8 


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to the Coromandel coast, and the rainy season of this coast 
lasts from October to April.” The failure of the monsoon 
is followed by the awful famines which periodically visit 
India, their severity and extent depending upon the light- 
ness or entire suppression of the annual rainfall, which, in 
turn, is governed by the periodical winds which bring the 
moisture in from the sea. 


India is a wonderfully productive country. What Heine 
saw in his day-dream is almost literally true: “‘ And I saw 
the blue, holy Ganges, the eternally radiant Hima- 
Products layas, the gigantic banyan forests, with their wide 
leafy avenues, in which the clever elephants and 
the white-robed pilgrims peacefully wander; strange dreamy 
flowers gazed at me with mysterious meaning; golden 
wondrous birds burst into glad wild song; glittering sun- 
beams and the sweetly silly laugh of apes teased me play- 
fully; and from distant pagodas came the pious strains of 
praying priests.” 
As India has many different climates it has a diversified 
flora. The territory may be divided into four divisions, 
each producing distinct flora. These are the Himalayan 
Flora slopes, the dry valley of the Indus, the drenched Assam, 
the Deccan. On the mountain sides grows every variety 
of vegetable life, from tropical plants to lichens and mosses 
of Arctic climates; the dry lands of Sind produce flora 
similar to that of Arabia; the hills of Assam bear the most 
luxuriant tropical vegetation; while the elevated tablelands 
grow the trees and grains of the temperate zone. Teak and 
sal forests on the mountain sides, the useful palm on the 
lowlands along the coasts, and the bamboo everywhere in 
the jungles, are the most useful trees. The banyan, the 
deodar, the mango, the sisam and the pipal abound. Two 
hundred and fifty species of orchids grow on the Khasia 
hills, in Assam alone. The chief grains ‘grown are millet, 
rice and wheat; the chief fibers, cotton and jute; while 
opium and indigo, tobacco, tea and coffee, and chinchona, 
sugar-cane, spices, and many other plants are largely grown. 


10 


Among the animals found in India are the tiger and 
leopard; the elephant and rhinoceros; the lion, the hyena, 
the jackal and 
Fauna the wolf; va- 
rious species of 
bears and_ deer, 
monkeys and _ ser- 
pents, many of the 
latter poisonous. 
The buffalo, the cam- 
el and the goat are 
domesticated; croco- 
diles abound in the 
rivers; large vultures 


act as scavengers, 
and smaller animals 
in great variety are 
found everywhere. 


ELEPHANT LIFTING THAI 


India is poor in minerals. There is coal, but it is not of 
very good quality. Salt is the great monopoly in Indian 
minerals. There are lakes from which the salt is 
Minerals taken by evaporation, and it is mined in the Punjab. 
There is a little iron, copper and tin, and a few dia- 

monds and some gold. 


The most important industry of India is agriculture. The 

people are a race of farmers. Nearly two-thirds of the people 

of India cultivate the soil. As the masses depend 

Agriculture upon the soil for their living, when, on account 
of the failure of the monsoon, the soil can make 

no return, they must starve, unless relieved by outside help. 


Manufacturing in India has always been on a small 

scale. Cotton-spinning and jute-making are carried on, but 

- most industries have been introduced by for- 
Manufactures’ eigners. India has a large commerce. In 
and Commerce 1901-2 the yearly exports amounted to about 
$475,000,000, and the imports to more than 

$385,000,000. The main exports are grain, raw cotton, opium 


1 


and seeds, and the main imports are cotton manufactures. 
There are more than five thousand vessels engaged in the 
India trade, and the commerce is steadily growing. 


THE PEOPLE 


The population of India is composed of a number of races 
whose ancestors entered the land from different homes at 
widely separated times. As: there is but little authen- 
Races tic ancient history in India, students have had to rely 
mainly upon philology, religion, tradition and race 
peculiarities in their study of these various strata of Indian 
society. ‘‘ India is a world in itself. While it represents 
but the one-fifteenth of the earth’s area, one out of every 
five of the human family is found among its 300,000,000 of 
inhabitants (294,233,343, census of 1901). It has ever been 
‘a land of desire,’ and its history, in consequence, has been 
‘a long march of successive dynasties, conqueror trampling 
upon conqueror, race overrunning race.’ The historic sense 
was little cultivated in the East, and the story of India 
before the invasion of Alexander the Great (327 B. C.), can- 
not be given with certainty, but before the advent of the 
Aryans, three distinct immigrations can be traced, the 
Tibeto-Burman and the Kolarian from the northeast, and 
the Dravidian from the northwest. The Indo-Aryan people 
—that section of the Aryan race which migrated to the 
southeast on leaving the primitive home in Central Asia 
four or five thousand years ago—crossed the Himalayan 
passes into the Punjab, and acquiring the name Hin- 
Hindus’ dus from their first settlement on the banks of the 
Indus, gradually dominated the country.” Descendants 

of the Tibeto-Burmans may still be found in certain Himala- 
yan tribes, the Kolarians are represented by the Santals of 
Bengal, and the Kols of Chotia Nagpur, and the Dravidians by 
the Gonds and Khonds, who remained distinct in the his, 
and by millions in the south who speak the four tongues, 
Telugu, Tamil, Kanarese, and Malayalam. After many suc- 
cessive incursions of the Aryans came Darius Hystaspes, who 
is said to have subjugated the Hindus; then followed Alexan- 


12 


ANVW DNIMOUS ‘SUAGVAT AALLVN JO SSANDNOO TYNOILVN 


13 


der the Great, about 327 B. C. A long time after this came 
the small tribe of Persians, now known as Parsees, driven 
out by the Mohammedan conqueror in the seventh century 
of our era. Then commenced, in the seventh 
Mohammedans’ century, the ineursions of Mohammedans, 
which were continued under different gen- 
erals, until the land was subdued in the eleventh century. 
The Mohammedan conquest has made a deep mark on Indian 
history, so that Edward VII. has in the descendants of the 
victorious invaders, and those who, forced by the sword or 
otherwise, accepted their religion, many more Mohammedan 
subjects than the Sultan of Turkey. 
In tracing these various racial influences which have 
contributed to the making of India the various European 
ingredients should not be omitted. From the be- 
Europeans” ginning of the sixteenth century onward, came, in 
order, the Portuguese, Dutch, Danes, French and 
English. These European Aryans came to trade with their 
brothers in the East, but gradually all gave way but the 
last, which has achieved at least a_ political supremacy 
greater than that which once belonged to the Mohammedans. 
India is peopled by a polyglot population, More than one 
hundred different languages and dialects are spoken by the 
various races and tribes of India. Some of them 
Languages are highly polished and have in them a copious 
literature, but many of them are uncultivated and 
barbarous, without grammar or literature. These languages 
may be divided into Aryan and non-Aryan languages. The 
leading Aryan languages are Hindi, including Hindustani 
or Urdu, the language of the Mohammedans, spoken by 
eighty-eight millions; Bengali, forty-one millions; Mara- 
thi, nineteen millions; Punjabi, eighteen millions; Guja- 
rati, eleven millions, and Uriya, nine millions. The most, 
important non-Aryan languages are the Telugu, spoken by 
twenty millions; Tamil, fifteen millions; Kanarese, ten mil- 
lions; Malayalam, five millions, and Gond, two millions. 
The Kolarian languages are all without written character or 
literature, and are spoken only by hill tribes. The principal 


14 


are Santali, spoken by about a million of people in western 
Bengal, and four languages spoken by about the same number 
of Kols and other tribes. in the Chotia Nagpur district. The 
sacred language of India is Sanskrit. “ India,” says 
Sanskrit Sir Monier Williams, “though it has, as we have 
seen, about one hundred spoken dialects, has only 
one sacred language and only one sacred literature, accepted 
and revered by all adherents of Hinduism alike, however 
diverse in race, dialect, rank and creed. That language is 
Sanskrit, and that literature is Sanskrit literature.” 
In traveling over this wide field among such diversified 
races, one cannot help being struck with certain peculiar 
characteristics which pertain to the separate 
Peculiar classes alone, or to the people as a _ whole. 
Characteristics The aborigines, found in the hills and jungles, 
as the Doms, Kols and Gonds are, as a rule, 
darker, shorter, and more illiterate than the other surround- 
ing races. The Hindus are generally slight of build, of 
medium height, with dark hair, smooth faces and 
Racial regular features. The higher classes are vegetarians, 
Variety and all, as a race, are mild in temper, industrious, and 
docile. Many of the Mohammedans, especially those 
living in the mountains, are larger, fiercer, and more fanat- 
ical than the Hindus. They hate idolatry and are zealous in 
propagating their faith. A strong race feeling exists among 
all the better classes in India. 
Caste distinction originated, doubtless, as race prejudice, 
and was perpetuated by the Brahmans. There are four dis- 
tinct, well-defined classes: (1) the Priests, Brahmans; 
Caste (2) the Warriors, Kshatriyas or Rajanyas; (3) the 
Working class, farmers, craftsmen and traders, Vai- 
shyas; and (4) the Menial class, Sudras;—in other words: 
those who pray; those who fight; those who produce and 
barter; and those who serve. This baleful system has 
fastened itself upon one-sixth of the human race and thrusts 
itself upon us on every side in India. It stops the wheels of 
progress and paralyzes the most earnest efforts to do 
good. 


15 


Temples, mosques, shrines, sacred rivers, trees and 

animals, all proclaim India’s religiousness. Priests and pun- 

dits, maulvis and callers to prayer, gods and god- 

Religious esses, festivals, sacred days and pilgrimages, tell 

Spirit the same story. Hindus, Mohammedans, Dravid- 

jans, are intensely and always religious. They will 

endure anything more than interference with their religion, 

as the Mutiny of 1857 bears testimony. And yet this very 

religiousness is the 

basis upon which 

Christ’s enduring 

Church is being 
built. 

In India what- 
ever is old is looked 
upon as right and 
worthy of accept- 
ance and _ observ- 
ance. They keep to 

the old paths. 
Power of Fashions 
Custom never change. 
Farming im- 
plements, looms, 
conveyances, house- 
hold furniture, the 
very houses of the 
people, are never im- 
proved. It is true 
that the advent of 
the English, bring- 
ing western thought, 
and especially intro- j 
ducing western modes of travel, along with the English en- 
terprise and the English language, has startled many out of 
their long sleep, but, as a rule, the people change slowly. 

The masses of the people live in towns and villages, the 

different castes in separate wards. There are no detached 


“RAMA,” AN IDOL WORSHIPPED 


16 


farmhouses as in America, The family life in the villages is 
very simple and quiet. The most of the people are farmers, 


Domestic and 
Social Life 


and very 
the rights 
oppressed. 


and are very industrious, but are not very frugal. 
They spend much on marriages and funerals and 
priests. The mass of the people are unlettered 
superstitious, They marry in_ childhood; 
of women are restricted, and widows are 
The women of the better classes are not 


A ZENANA 


permitted outside of the zenanas, but the masses of the 
peasantry work in the fields, men and women together. 
They get but one meal a day of bread made of some cheap 
erain, or rice, and vegetables. If they cannot get that, they 
go hungry and patiently endure. 


THE RELIGIONS 


India is not only the home of many races but of many 
religions also. It would be impossible to enumerate the 


ig 


multitude of cults in India. It is sometimes thought by 
foreigners who have not lived in this land that the popula- 
tion is divided in religious views between the Hindus and 
Mohammedans. But that is far from being the case. India 
is a hotbed of religions, and more are in process of 
Principal evolution under our very eyes. The more promi- 
Faiths nent of these religions are (1901), the Hindus with 
207,146,422 adherents; Mohammedans, 62,458,061 ; 
Aboriginal religions, 8,584,349; Buddhists, 9,476,750; Chris- 
tians, 2,923,241. The Sikhs, Jains, Parsees, Jews, and smaller 
miscellaneous faiths number together 3,644,500. Reserving 
Christianity till later, it will be necessary to pass over the 
smaller sects in a few words. 
Although at one time Buddhism was dominant in India, 
this faith is now only found in Nipal, in India proper. Gau- 
tama, and Buddha, or “ The Enlightened,” was born 
Buddhism at Kapalavastu, one hundred miles north of Be- 
nares, about 500 B. C. He became weary of the 
sorrows and enigmas of life, made the “ Great Renuncia- 
tion,” attained ‘Enlightenment ” under the “ Bo” tree, and 
for forty-five years went about in India preaching the doc- 
trine that suffering is to be got rid of by the suppression of 
desires, and by the extinction of personal existence. His 
religion was a protest against the weary round of ceremo- 
nies and sacrifices of the Brahminical priesthood, and em- 
phasized the moral and social side of human life. But event- 
ually Brahmanism prevailed, and took Buddhism to its arms 
and ‘sucked out its life’s blood,’ but not till it had been 
established in Ceylon, in the days of King Asoka, 250 B. C., 
to be carried from there to Burma in the fifth century of 
our era. 
The Jains have many points in common with the Bud- 
dhists, seeking Nirvana as the ultimate emancipatign 
from. the power of metempsychosis, and looking 
Jains and upon all life as sacred and to be carefully protected. 
Parsees The Parsees are to be found principally in Bombay, 
where they are wealthy and influential. They are 
the descendants of the followers of Zoroaster, in Persia, who 


18 


were driven by their Mohammedan conquerers, in the 
seventh century, to seek safety with the Raja of Surat, in 


India. 
Three Most The other important religions in India fall 
Important under three classes—Aboriginal religions, Hindu- 
Religions ism, and Mohammedanism. 


The chief representatives of the first are the 
Kolarian and the Dravidian, or the religions of the two great 
Turanian or Non-Aryan races which entered 


Aboriginal India before the advent of the ancestors of the 
or Non-Aryan Hindus. Of these it may be said that the faith of 
Faiths the former of these two races, although less civil- 


ized, is milder than that of the latter. But of 
both it must be said that the characteristic principle is 
devil worship. 
Of the Santals, the leading tribe of the Kolarians, who 
live among the hills along the Ganges in lower Bengal, it 
has been said: “ They have no castes or kings, but 
Kolarians live in free village communities. Their religion 
amounts to little more than spirit or demon wor- 
ship: besides the spirits of their forefathers, there are those 
which dwell in each mountain, forest, river, well; there is 
the race-god, the clan-god, and the god or spirit of each 
family. These tutelary spirits are supposed to dwell in 
large ancient trees.” S: 
While the more numerous and more civilized Dravidians, 
occupying the Deccan and the hills of the Vindhya range, 
are more influential than the Kolarians, yet “ their 
Dravidians religion is of the most barbarous character, and has 
exercised a baneful influence on that of the Aryan 
and semi-Aryan population, which professes the medley of 
Vedism, Brahmanism, and the native gross superstitions, now 
known as Hinduism.” Like the Kolarians, they worship 
spirits and goblins, and their priests are versed in all the 
tricks of Shamanism. They worship the earth, and especially 
the serpent Shesh, as the earth’s special emblem. To this 
earth-god they were accustomed to offer up, until prohib- 
ited by the British Government, finally so late as 1835, 


19 


twice a year, at seed-time and harvest, and on special occa- 
sions, human victims. 

What a strange medley is Hinduism! The Hindus com- 
menced by calling the aborigines demons, fiends, and wiz- 


Copyright, 7go3—Fleming H. Revell Co. From India’s Problem, 
A BRAHMAN GENTLEMAN 


ards, and ended by incorporating many of their 

Stages beliefs and practices, such as serpent worship, aness- 

of Hindu tor worship, bloody sacrifices, and charms into their 

Religion own religion. Tracing the Indo-Aryan religion from 

its source, perhaps four thousand years ago among 

the Indo-Iranians, it may be divided into three parts, Vedism, 
Brahmanism, and Hinduism. 


20 


The first of these is the cult found in the four Vedas, espe- 

cially in the Rig-Veda. The religion of the Rig-Veda is, in one 

word, physiolatry, or the worship of nature-gods, be- 

Vedism ginning with phases of the material world, like “ sky,” 

“storm,” “fire,” “sun,” and passing over to more 

general ideas; “The Supporter,” “The Soul of the World,” 

and “ Brahm,” or deified prayer. When God was no longer 

thought of as person, sin was no longer felt as ethical evil. 

Gradually the primitive cult of the Rishis changed into 

the teachings of the Brahmans, called Brahmanism, which 

includes a strict priestly code, a subtle philos- 

Brahmanism ophy, and a body of rigid laws, with an iron- 

bound system of caste dominating the whole. 

Finally, under the influence of its environments and 

through the force of circumstances, the older faith deterio- 

rated into Hinduism, which is still ideally panthe- 

Hinduism istic but practically polytheistic. To this stage 

belong the epic writings, the Ramayana, the Ma- 

habharata, and the Puranas, recounting the story of the 

contending gods and goddesses. Hinduism appears to be a 

reservoir into which has run all the various religious ideas 

which the mind of man is able to elaborate. It was influ- 

enced by the animism of the aboriginal tribes, powerfully 

affected by Buddhism, and in its efforts to keep its hold upon 

the masses it has made room~for most of their beliefs in its 

system. Hinduism is popularly said to include the worship 

of three hundred and thirty million gods and goddesses. In 

upholding the pretensions of the Brahmans and the restric- 
tions of caste, it has changed but little. 

One-fifth of the population of India are votaries of that 

cold, metaphysical, monotheistic creed, called by its disci- 

ples, Islam, “ Resignation,” dating from the 

Mohammedanism Hegira, or flight of Mohammed from Mecca 

in A. D. 622. “Its one authentic standard 

is the Quran, which presents a corruption of the Mosaic rev- 

elation, as the Vedas do of the patriarchal. The contents of 

this book are partly borrowed from the Old Testament 

Scriptures, adulterated by the puerile superstitions of the 


21 


Babylonian Jews, and_ partly 
from the wild legends of the 
Arabian desert.” Moham- 
medanism was first intro- 
duced into India about the 
year 664 when Multan was 
invaded from Kabul. Mah- 
mud of Ghazni conquered the 
whole of the Punjab early in 
the eleventh century. From 
Akbar to Arungzeb, 1556- 
1707, the Mogul empire 
reached the height of its 
power in India. With the 
Quran in one hand and the 
sword in the other, for seven 
and a half centuries, it cried 
up and down the land “ There 
is no God but God, and Mo- 
hammed is the prophet of 
God.” But hundreds of thou- 
sands of Hindus gave up their 
lives rather 

Its Missionary than their re- 
Zeal ligion. Moham- 
medanism is in- 

tensely missionary. In almost 
every sacred city of the Hin- 
dus there stand forth the 
lofty minarets of the mosques 
of Islam. So alert and ag- 
gressive and bigoted are these 
people, that in one hundred 
years Christianity has made 
but little progress among 
them. These millions’ of 
Hindus and Mohammedans, 
the one revering the cow THE KUTUB MINAR, DELHI 


and the other abhorring the swine, the one a vegetarian and 
the other carnivorous, the one mild and apathetic and the 
other fierce and bigoted, the one with gods innumerable 
and the other with a metaphysical abstraction, live side by 
side, cultivating the ‘same soil and living in the same towns, 
both peaceful subjects of the same Christian emperor. 


CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 


The Syrian Church of Malabar is the oldest Christian or- 

ganization in India. The first missionary to India of whom 

we have any record is Pantaenus, who was principal 

Syrian of the Christian college at Alexandria, but who was 

Church sent, about the year 180 A. D., Jerome says, to “ preach 

Christ among the Brahmans.’ Quite a community 

was gathered, which was cared for by the Nestorian Church 

of Persia, until the Mohammedans partly scattered it. 

When the Portuguese found them in the sixteenth century 

they were enjoying considerable prosperity, but were made 

to pass through the awful ordeal of the Inquisition, to com- 

pel them to come into conformity to the Romish Church. 

The descendants of those who refused to conform, few in 

numbers, are still to be found on the Malabar coast. 

Roman In 1542 the devoted and _ self-sacrificing Jesuit, 

Catholics Francis Xavier, began his work in India, and dur- 
ing the course of his life made many converts. 

The first Protestant missionaries to work in India were 

the Danes, Ziegenbale and Plutschau, who landed at Tran- 

quebar in 1706. They met with much opposition, 


First but in three years they had gathered 160 converts. 
Protestant Ziegenbale translated the New Testament into 
Work Tamil, and had completed the work on the Old 


Testament as far as the book of Ruth, when he died 
in 1719. In fifty years 11,000 converts were gathered. 

The first Protestant Missionary Society to begin work in 
India was the Baptist Missionary Society, which was formed 
in 1792, largely through the efforts of William 
Carey. He was sent out as its first missionary, 
arriving in 1793. But he found his way blocked 


First English 
Societies 


23 


by the -East India Company, who would not allow evan- 

gelistic work among the natives. So he took secular work 

as an indigo planter. Afterward he was joined by Marsh- 

man and Ward and they opened their life work under 

the protection of the Danes at Serampur. But up to 1813 

they were much opposed and hindered in their work. In 

that year they were working in ten stations and preaching 

in ten languages. They organized a college at Serampur 

and translated, in whole or in part, the Scriptures in thirty- 

one Indian languages and dialects. Nathaniel Forsyth, the 

first missionary of the London Missionary Society, had, in 

1798, to seek protection in the Dutch settlement of Chin- 

surah, twenty miles north of Calcutta, against the prohi- 

bition of his own timid countrymen. 

The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Mis- 

sions was the first American Society to open a mission in 

India, which they did in 1812, when they be- 

First American gan the Marathi Mission. When the mission- 

Society aries landed in Caleutta in that year they 

were peremptorily ordered out of the country 

by the government. Two of them, Gordon Hall and Samuel 

Nott, escaped to Bombay, where, after many hardships, they 

were permitted to enter upon their work. Mr. Hall labored 

thirteen years in Bombay. The Madura Mission was opened 

by the American Board in 1835, William Todd and Henry 
Hoisington being the first missionaries. 

The Church of England early established missions in 

India. But before the societies sent men, such bishops and 

chaplains as Heber, Wilson, and Henry 

Later Movements Martyn were earnest in their efforts to 

From England evangelize the natives. The Church Mis- 

sionary Society opened work in Madras in 

1815, and in Calcutta in 1816. The Society for the Propaga: ¢ 

tion of the Gospel began its work in India in 1818, in Mad- 

ras and Calcutta. The Wesleyan Missionary Society has 

been at work in India and Ceylon since 1814. In 1813 the 

venerable Dr. Coke sailed for India to start a mission at his 

own expense, but died at sea on the 3d of May, 1814. The 


24 


rest of the party proceeded first to Bombay, but afterward 
opened a successful work in Ceylon, and later, in 1817, one 
of the number, the Rev. James Lynch, went to Madras and 
opened work there. 


MADURA TEMPLE 


From the first centers the work spread rapidly after the 

Kast India Company removed its prohibition to mission 
work in 1813. Other societies from Europe and Amer- 

Judson ica from time to time sent their agents into this great 


25 


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and needy field. Adoniram Judson went under the au- 
spices of the American Board in 1812, but changing his 
views on the subject of baptism, was appointed by the 
American Baptist Missionary Union as their first missionary 
to Burma in 1814, where he labored, preaching and writing, 
and translating the Scriptures, until 1850. 
Alexander Duff was sent out in 1830 by the Church of 
Scotland Mission to Calcutta, where he at once opened an 
educational institution upon evangelical lines and_ be- 
Duff came the great pio- 
neer of missionary 
education in the East. 
Adhering to the Free 
Church upon its separa- 
tion in 1843, he continued 
his labors with great suc- 
cess until 1863. A num- 
ber of influential men 
were converted in his 
school, or under his in- 
fluence. Duff, Wilson, 
and Anderson, in the 
three Presidency cities, 
Calcutta, Bombay, Mad- 
ras, formed a strong Scot- 
tish educational trio. In 
the meantime the Amer- 
ican Presbyterians  en- MEMORIAL WELL, CAWNPUR 
tered the field 
Other Early especially in North India, where three mission cen- 
Presbyterian ters were formed. The Presbyterian Church of Ire- 
Centers land opened work in Gujarat in 1841, and the 
United Presbyterian Church of Scotland in 186€90, 
commenced their Rajputana Mission. Other missions were 
started in various parts of this great territory, and the work 
spread into almost every part of it. The Church of England 
Missions were marvelously successful in Tinnevelly, 
Success the Baptists in Burma among the Karens, and the 


28 


Wesleyans in Ceylon, and churches and_ schools were 
springing up everywhere. Then came the great Mutiny of 
1857, which checked the work for a time, tested its genuine- 
ness, and resulted in giving a greater impetus to missionary 

work afterward. When the statistics were taken 


Summary in 1861, it was found that in all India there were, 
in 1861 in the Protestant native church, 97 native ordained 


agents, 24,976 communicants, 138,731 native Chris- 

tians, and 75,975 pupils under instruction. 
The past fifty years have been years of advance along all 
lines in missionary work in India. The Mutiny revealed 
the steadfastness and loyalty of the native Christians 


Present in the midst of persecution, even under threat of 
Status death. It also brought India under the direct govern- 


ment of the Queen, who issued the noble proclamation 

of political liberty and complete religious toleration which 
marks the beginning of India’s true history. Englishmen 
were led to feel their responsibility as never before, and 
all Christians were stirred to fresh missionary effort. 
The number of missionaries has_ in- 


Great Increase creased fourfold. The Methodist Episcopal 
of Mission Force Mission opened by Dr. Butler, in 1856, the 


Rajputana Mission, by Dr. Shoolbred, in 

1860, and the Christian Vernacular Education Society, by 

Dr. Murdock, in 1858, all grew, as it were, out of the very 
ashes of the Mutiny. 

Up to the middle of the last century the growth of the 

native Christian community in numbers was not rapid. 

Still, there was steady growth, especially in 


Early Growth South India. In 1756, the Danish Missionary 
in Numbers Society had 11,000 converts after half a century 


of work. In 1811, after eighteen years, the 
Baptist Missionary Society had three hundred converts, one- 
third of whom had been added in about a year. In 1891 the 
number had grown to more than 50,000. In 1830 the Church 
Missionary Society had 7,500 Christians in the Madras Presi- 
dency, which had increased to 11,000 in 1835, and to 17,000 
in 1840. 


29 


The growth of the Church among the Pachamas, or de- 
pressed classes of South India, has been remarkable. In 
the Nellore district “The Lone Star” Mission 
Later Striking of the American Baptist Missionary Union 
Results waited thirty years before there was any fruit. 
In 1865 there were 35 converts; in 1874 there 
were nearly 4,000 communicants; in 1878, 8,691 were bap- 
tized in a month and a half, and 2,222 in one day. The mis- 
sion now has more than 100,000 adherents. In Tinnevelly, 
in 1878, 19,000 natives joined the Mission of the Society for 
the Propagation of the Gospel, and during the same year 
11,000 were baptized by the Church Missionary Society. In 
Tinnevelly and the Telugu country 60,000 were converted in 
1876. The London Mission in Travancore gathered in 30,000 
in a short time. Equally remarkable has been the growth 
in the work of the Methodist Episcopal Mission of North 
India. Between 1861 and 1872 the increase in numbers was 
500 per cent. Since then nearly 100,000 have been added, 

as high as 16,000 in one year. 
The entire Protestant Church in India increased from 
91,092 adherents and 15,129 communicants in 1851, to 
591,810 adherents and 376,617 communicants 
Adherents and in 1901, or, if Ceylon and Burma are included, 
Communicants 606,605 adherents and 432,924 communicants 
(Geography and Atlas of Protestant Missions, 
II, 19, Harlan P. Beach). Dr. John P. Jones, author of 
India’s Problem, analyzes the figures of the census of 1901 
and shows that there are 970,000 native Protestant Chris- 
tians in India, being an advance of sixty-four per cent. dur- 

ing the preceding ten years. 

Educational work begun by Carey and Duff has gone 
forward until now there are many Christian colleges affili- 
ated with the government universities. Female 
Educational education and zenana work have been introduced. 
Progress In Ward’s day there were no girls’ schools, and 
practically none in Duff’s. Miss Cooke started 
the first school for girls in Caleutta in 1821. Miss Wakefield 
gained admission to some zenanas in 1835. But now 


30 


thousands of girls are being trained in the schools and 

thousands of women in the zenanas of India. Medical work 

Reaching Women among the women of the land, too, is a 

“eee recent method. In this Miss Swain, M.D., 

and Miss Seelye, M.D., took the lead, to be 

followed in these days by scores of others from different 
lands. 


Christian education has now completely altered the out- 


GIRLS’ SCHOOL, SITAPUR 


look of educated India on moral and social questions. In a 

Government Report to Parliament it has been stated : 

General ‘‘The missionaries, as a body, know the natives of 

Influence India well; they have prepared hundreds of works, 

suited both for schools and for general circulation, 

in the fifteen most prominent languages of India and in the 

several other dialects; they have largely stimulated the 

great increase of the native literature prepared in recent 
years by educated native gentlemen.” 


31 


In 1851 there were about 63,500 scholars in all the mission 

schools in India; in 1861, 75,975; in 1871, 122,372, of whom 

22,611 were women and girls. In 1890 there were 

Increase in eighty-six colleges and high schools, and 6,831 

School schools of all grades, in which 284,528 pupils were 

Attendance studying. To-day more than 300,000 are being 

taught in the Christian Schools of India. Thou- 

sands of children rescued during the recent famines have 

been gathered into orphanages and industrial institutions 
and are being carefully trained in head, heart and hand. 

The statistical summary of Foreign Missions in the Re- 

port of the Ecumenical Missionary Conference, New York, 

1900, gives the following educational statistics 

Educational for India: Colleges, 34; pupils, 22,084; theolog- 

Statistics ical and training schools, 107; pupils, 4,370; board- 

ing and high schools and seminaries, 340; pupils, 

41,456; industrial training institutions and classes, 46; pupils, 

4,287; medical schools, 16; pupils, 191. 

Aside from purely educational work, which in itself is 

indirectly evangelistic, there has been, during the past one 

hundred years, an immense amount of evan- 

Evangelistic and gelistic effort put forth. This has resulted 

Religious Life in leavening the whole empire with Chris- 

tian truth. The influence of Christian Mis- 

sions in India is far beyond anything shown in statistical 

tables. The whole fabric of the social system has been af- 

fected. As Bishop Thoburn, after more than forty years’ in- 

timate knowledge with every part of the land, truly says: 

“ All India is rapidly changing. The fetters of caste are weak- 

ening. Hindus and thousands of the people who eschew the 

Christian name are rapidly imbibing the Christian spirit, 

which is beginning wonderfully to pervade the more intel- 

ligent part of the community.” The religious condition of 

the native chureh is improving yearly. Although so many 

have been brought in from the very lowest strata of society, 

yet in the relative increase of communicants, in the grow- 

ing desire to give to the support and spread of the gospel, 

and in the multiplying of voluntary workers imbued with 


32 


evangelistic zeal, is seen the growth of the native church in 
spirituality. 
Concerning modern missions in India it has been recently 
said by Graham: “The younger branch of the Aryan 
family going westward into Europe found Christ 
The One and prospered, and now to an ever-increasing 
Aryan Family degree it realizes the privilege of heralding the 
good tidings among its elder brethren in India. 
At the beginning of the nineteenth century it had not more 
than ten representatives; now they are to be found in al- 
most every district. The 
missionary army of well- 
nigh two thousand men is 
truly international—from 
the British Empire, in- 
cluding Canada and Au- 
stralasia, America, Ger- 
many, Sweden and Den- 
mark. The place of honor / 
in respect of numbers is = 
held by our American kins- 
men, whose disinterested 
zeal and liberality are 
worthy of all commenda- 
tion. The army, too, is in- 
terdenominational — Pres- 
byterians, Episcopalians, 
Lutherans, Baptists, Meth- 
odists, Congregationalists, 
Friends, and others, all 
with few exceptions, working in harmony, dividing the land 
between them, and meeting in provincial and general con- 
ference for mutual help.” 


THE MOHAMMEDAN, ZAHUR UL 
HAQQ, OUR FIRST CONVERT 


THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL MISSION 


The Rev. William Butler, D.D., sailed from Boston 
in April, 1856, to found for the Methodist Episcopal 
Chureh a Mission in India. This mission was decided upon 


33 


through the solicitation of Dr. Duff, who visited America in 
1854. Dr. Butler landed in Calcutta on September 23d, and 
at once pushed on to Benares, and from there pro- 
ceeded to Lucknow, the capital of Oudh (about to 
_ become the scene of bloody events), which he reached 
North India (1, the 29th of November. Although discouraged 
by current conditions and by the English officials, yet he re- 
solved to make this city the center of the new mission. But 
being unable to procure a house he pushed on to Bareilly, 


Dr. Butler 
Enters 


NAINI TAL 


in Rohilkhund. Here he secured property and by March, 
1857, was preaching in English, and through Joel Janvier, 
who had been generously assigned him by the Presbyterians 

of Allahabad, in the vernacular. / 

In May the terrible storm of the Mutiny burst upon 

them, and on the 18th he, with his family, barely 

Work After escaped with lfe to the hill station of Naini Tal, 
the Mutiny from which he was not to return to the ruins of his 
home for more than a year. On March 11th he ventured 


34 


down to Agra to meet the first recruits for the mission, 
Messrs. Humphrey and Pierce who had traveled up from Cal- 
cutta. In Naini Tal the first chapel was made from a sheep- 
house transformed at a cost of less than nine iupees, or four 
doHars. Upon their return to the plains, work was opened in 
Lucknow, and then early in 1859, Bareilly was again occu- 
pied. Thus out of the very ruins of the Mutiny rose this 
new mission, destined to spread over Southern Asia before 
the close of the century. As rapidly as reinforcements were 
received from America, or were raised up on the soil, other 
stations were opened throughout the Northwest Provinces 
and Oudh. 

During the next sixteen years the field was occupied in 
the following order: in 1859, Moradabad, Bijnor, and Shah- 
jehanpur; in 1860, Budaon; in 1861, Lakhimpur and Sitapur ; 
in 1864, Rai-Bareilly and Gonda; in 1865, Garhwal; in 1868, 
Baraich; in 1871, Cawnpur; in 1873, Allahabad; in 1874, 

Kastern Kumaon; in 1875, Agra. The whole coun- 

Growth of try attempted to be covered in this way at first by 

the Field the Methodist Mission of North India is about 

three hundred and fifty miles long by one hundred 

and fifty broad, and contains an area of forty-six thousand 

square miles, with a very large population, the average be- 

ing more than 450 to the square mile. The people are mostly 
Hindus and the language Hindustani. 

The society hoped to be able to send twenty-five mission- 

aries to cultivate this field. While it was not able to do 

this, yet from 1859 to 1869 twenty-four addi- 

Steady tional missionaries were sent out or raised up 

Reinforcements in India, among whom were the two who 

became Bishops Thoburn and Parker. Dur- 

ing the next decade there were added to the force about 

twice as many regular foreign missionaries as were sent out 

from 1859 to 1869, this number not including the wives of 
missionaries. 

The Woman’s’ Foreign Missionary Society having 
been organized in Boston in 1869, their first mission- 
aries, Miss Isabella Thoburn and Miss Clara A. Swain, the 


35 


latter a qualified physician, were sent out in 1870, the fore- 
runners of a long line of women workers 
destined to great usefulness in the zenanas, 
schoolrooms, and dispensaries of India. 


Woman’s Work 
Begun 


The work of the mission has been varied and multiform 
from the beginning. An immense amount of preaching 
has been done in the bazars, village markets, on the 
streets, at the festivals, and in churches, halls and tents. 

Extensive use has been made of the magic lantern in 
Varied village preaching. Thus eye and ear catch the gospel 
Agencies. story. Able litera- 
ture is fast becom- 
ing available for preacher 
and public. Much educa- 
tional work also has been 
developed. In 1858 there 
were 41 scholars; in 1875, 
8,000, of whom 1,759 were 
girls. In 1860 there were 
160 in Sunday-school; in 
L875, 06,70 ee Leet ttie 
Nawab of Rampur gave a 
fine property to the mis- 
sion at Bareilly for a hos- 
pital, of which Miss Swain 
had charge for a number 
of years. In 1872 the Ba- 
reilly Theological School, MISS ISABELLA THOBURN 
which has had such a re- 
markable history, was opened. In 1858 there were six or- 
phans, who in 1861 had increased to 18, and in 1862 to 228, 
of whom 146 were girls. In 1862 the girls’ educational work 
was removed from Lucknow to Bareilly and that of the boys 
from Bareilly to Shahjehanpur, where the institutions have 
permanently remained. A girls’ boarding-school was started 
in Lucknow by Miss Thoburn, in 1870 (the first of many suc- 
cessors), which has become the Isabella Thoburn College for 
Women, the first college for women in Asia. It has a very 


36 


important Normal School department, which is supplying 

teachers to other institutions, both government and mission, 

that are fast springing into existence. A printing press was 

set up in Bareilly under the management of the Rev. James 

W. Waugh, and in 1866 it was removed to Lucknow, where 

it is now known as the Methodist Publishing House. <A 

weekly religious paper was published by this press and 

edited by the Rev. James M. Thoburn and the Rey. James 

H. Messmore under the name of the Lucknow Witness, in 

1871, and which has had a continuous existence, being now 

published at Calcutta as the Indian Witness. The Kaukab 

1 Hind, published at Lucknow, is an influential paper in 

Roman Hindustani for the Native Church. For thirty years 

a weekly children’s paper in several languages has been 
maintained with an average weekly circulation of 30,000. 

Dr. Butler continued to superintend the mission till 1864, 

when it was organized into an Annual Conference by Bishop 

Thomson. In taking leave, Dr. Butler re- 

Mission Becomes ported that up to that time nine stations had 

an Annual been occupied, nineteen mission houses built, 

Conference ten chapels and sixteen schoolhouses erected, 

two orphanages provided, a printing press 

started, twelve congregations gathered, 1,322 scholars en- 

rolled, 161 Christians brought together, and four preachers 

and eleven exhorters licensed. 


After 1864 the work of the mission rapidly spread not 

only in the compact and limited field of North India but 
throughout the empire. There commenced, 

Development about the year 1870, to be some ingathering from 
After 1864 among the Mazabi Sikhs of Moradabad and the 
Sweepers of Budaon, both classes coming from 

among these tribes and castes, which furnish four-fifths of 

all the converts to Christianity in India. Since then multi- 
plied thousands have been converted in this field, and the 
overflow has resulted in the organization of a Conference 
which has now a larger Christian community than the 
mother Conference. After 1870 our mission movement began 

to take hold first among the English-speaking popula- 


37 


AUVNINGS TVOIDOIOUHL ATUGUVA “SSVIO DNILVOdVES GNV ALTOOVA 


tion, and then among the various nations which compose 
the empire. 
An epoch in the history of the work was the arrival of 
William Taylor in November, 1870. He became a_ pioneer 
in the expansion of our cause, and the 
William Taylor’s founder of the self-supporting churches of 
Great Work South India, and for the next four years 
their history consists mainly of his personal 
journal. From November until March, after his arrival, he 
held almost daily meetings in Lucknow and Cawnpur, at 
which place he organized a church in December, and in the 
various centers of our work, in Oudh and Rohilkhund, and 
then, after helping the Presbyterians at Meerut and the 
Baptists at Delhi, he went out of the heat of the plains to 
Naini Tal. On November 12th he commenced work in 
chapels and halls of other missions in Bombay, where, up to 
December 22d, over sixty had been converted. He then or- 
ganized them into bands, or classes, and, as he said, “ set 
them to helping each other.” The first class was formed at 
Mrs. Miles’ house on December 30th, with the Rev. George 
Bowen as leader. By February 4th, there were six bands, 
and by March, nine, into which were gathered 130 converts. 
Deeming it expedient for their proper spiritual oversight, he 
organized them into a Methodist Episcopal Church. Thus 
commenced the self-supporting churches of South India. 
In like manner he opened work at Poona in the latter 
part of 1872, and at Calcutta early in 1873, of which latter 
field he wrote: ‘The hardest work of my life, I 


Success at believe, was here in the streets of Calcutta, under 
Calcutta the greatest discouragements. For months it 


and Madras’ seemed very doubtful, by all outward indications, 
whether we could raise a working force at all. I 

became more and more convinced that a great work of God 
was what Caleutta least desired, and most needed, and that 

a more convenient season would never come; so I deter- 
mined as the Lord would lead, to push the battle and win, 

or die at the guns.” In April, thirteen enrolled themselves, 
which number in June had increased to forty. The first 


39 


church, a plain building, thirty by fifty feet, was built in 
Zig-zag Lane. From Calcutta Taylor went south during 
1874 to Secunderabad, Madras, and Bangalore, in all of 
which places many were converted and churches were 
organized. 

In 1874 Bishop Harris made an episcopal visit to India, 
and appointed William Taylor superintendent of this 


CHURCH AT BARODA, BOMBAY CONFERENCE 


new work. It was brought into official connection with the 
North India Conference, and Dr. Thoburn, Pre- 
siding Elder of the Oudh district, was trans- 
ferred to Caleutta. During this four years’ 
campaign many preachers and missionaries had been added 
to the work, not only from America, but in India. William 
Taylor left India in 1875, and on November 9th, 1876, Bishop 
Andrews organized all this work into the South India Con- 


Organization 
and Progress 


40 


ference, with three districts, Bombay, Calcutta, and Madras. 
There were thirteen churches and two parsonages, forty local 
preachers, 1,681 in Sunday-school, and 1,596 com- 
South India municants. The work went forward both north 
Conference and south with new vigor. The South India Con- 
ference has been several times divided — so that 
parts of its original territory are now found in Northwest 
India, Bengal, and Bombay Conferences and Central Provinces 
Mission Conference. In spite of all their prunings, the main 
stem of the original South India Conference still thrives and is 
more fruitful than ever. Under Dr. Thoburn’s pastorate the 
Zig-zag Lane Church was too small and a new church was 
built on Dharamtala Street, which, in turn, being outgrown, 
the people worshipped in a theatre until the present large 
church building was erected and opened in 1876. The mission 
advanced into many new places throughout India, and spread 
into Burma and to the Straits Settlements, which latter places 
were added to the mission territory of Ben- 
Bengal, Malaysia, gal in 1879 and 1884, respectively, the whole 
Burma and Bombaybeing tentatively organized in 1887, and 
Conferences permanently into the Bengal Conference, in 
1893. In this year, however, the Straits 
Settlements were constituted a Mission Conference, to be fol- 
lowed by a like organization for Burma in 1900. ‘The terri- 
tory on the western side of India was gathered into the Bom- 
bay Conference in 1893. The Malaysia Mission Conference 
became an Annual Conference in 1902. And finally the Philip- 
pine Islands Mission Conference, a part of ‘Southern Asia,” 
came into being in 1905 and will doubtless rise to the dignity 

of an Annual Conference in 1907. 

In the meantime the work among the masses had been 
spreading in a wonderful way in the northern Conference. 
Thousands of converts were brought in from the Sweeper 
caste. The great center of this work was, at first, in the Bu- 

daon civil district under the Rev. Robert Hoskins. 
Northwest From there it spread into the country between the 
India Ganges and Jumna rivers. In the decade from 1880 
Conference to 1890, this movement developed at Kasganj, Agra, 


41 


Meerut and Muttra; and in 1893, Bishop Thoburn formed 
“that portion of the Northwest Provinces which les south 
and west of the Ganges, the Punjab, and such parts of Raj- 
putana and Central India as lie north of the twenty-fifth 
parallel of latitude,” into the Northwest India Conference. 
At that time the Conference had 24 missionaries, 92 local 
preachers, and 15,066 communicants. Twelve years later the 


DEDICATION CONGREGATION IN GUJARAT 


number of communicants in Northwest India Conference had 
reached 50,355. 

Much has been made in India of the District and Central 
Conferences. As the rank and file of the workers are local 
preachers and exhorters, the District Conference has really 

more of a direct bearing upon the work than the 
District and Annual Conference, for at that time this class of 
Central workers are examined, relicensed, and reappointed 
Conferences’ to their field. Moreover upon these occasions are 
held the great camp meetings of the two north- 


42 


ern Conferences which have been so useful in deepening 
the spiritual life among the people. The first Central 
Conference was held in 1886, and they have been held 
biennially ever since. Being a delegated body from both 
the General and Woman’s Societies, it has supervision 
of educational and publishing, and such other connectional 
interests and work as may be committed to it by the several 
Annual Conferences and Missions of Southern 
Election of Asia. In 1888, Dr. James M. Thoburn, who 
Bishop Thoburn had been continuously devoted to the work 
since 1859, was elected Missionary Bishop, and 
entered upon that marvelous life of incessant travel, 
preaching, planning, and administering, which has resulted 

in planting our churches in every part of Southern Asia. 
The Methodist Episcopal Chureh is now at work from 
Lahore to Manila, and from JXarachi to Rangoon, thus in- 
cluding the Philippine Islands Mission, which 
Vast Territory has been added to this great Southern Asia 
Now Covered field. A splendid roll of devoted missionaries, 
with their wives and representatives of the 
Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society, have been indefatigable 
in their evangelistic, educational, industrial and medical 
services, until the growth of the work exceeds fa- 
Personnel cilities to provide pastors and teachers to care for 
and Services it, and success itself becomes the greatest embar- 

rassment. A 
From the beginning the Church provided for periodical 
official visits from the General Superintendents, who in- 
spected the work, performed necessary duties pertaining to 
their office, and reported to the Missionary Society the na- 
ture, and condition, and needs of the work. 
Superintendency Upon the election of a Missionary Bishop 
these visits were discontinued until the Gen- 
eral Conference of 1896 provided that once in every quad- 
rennium every mission over which a Missionary Bishop has 
jurisdiction shall be administered conjointly by the General 
Superintendents and the Missionary Bishop. 

Under this rule the work in Southern Asia was visited 


A? 
vo 


BISHOP J. M. THOBURN BISHOP F. W. WARNE 


BISHOP W. F. OLDHAM BISHOP J. E. ROBINSON 


THE MISSIONARY BISHOPS FOR SOUTHERN ASIA 


44 


and inspected by Bishop Foss in 1898, concerning which he 
reported to the General Missionary Committee in November 
that “it is the most successful mission we have 
Visit of anywhere or have ever had.” But this success 
Bishop Foss was gained not without personal sacrifice. Forty 
years of incessant toil, the last twelve of them 
lived at high pressure and under heavy burdens, began to 
wear down the health of Bishop Thoburn, and it became 
imperative for the General Conference of 1900 to afford re- 
lief. This was done by the election of two additional Mis- 
sionary Bishops, the Rev. Edwin W. Parker, a 
contemporary of Bishop Thoburn, and _ the 
Rev. Frank W. Warne, his successor in Cal- 
cutta, the former of whom, however, after 
having labored indefatigably for more than forty years, fell 
ill, soon after his election, and died in Naini Tal, June 3, 
1901. 

After Bishop Parker’s death the entire care of the vast 
field, including Burma, Malaysia, East Indies, and the Philip- 
pines, devolved upon Bishop Warne, as Bishop Thoburn was 

not longer able to live in India. Consequently, the 

Additional General Conference of 1904 elected two additional 

Bishops Bishops, W. F. Oldham, and J. E. Robinson, both 

of whom were missionaries acquainted with the 

field, and the entire field is_now more closely supervised 
than ever before. 


Up to the time Dr. Butler left India in 1864, the Metho- 
dist Episcopal Church had less than fifty mission buildings 
in all India, and in making his report he stated that “ we 

had to go in; amid all the confusion of rights and 

Material titles, and an earnest competition for materials and 
Progress workmen, and seek suitable locations for our mission 
stations and build up our houses as well as we 

could.” When William Taylor commenced his self-support- 
ing mission in South India he had no churches, but his 
people had to worship in borrowed or hired chapels, halls, 
schoolhouses and theatres; and when the South India Con- 
ference was organized in 1876, there were only fifteen 


Election of 
Bishops Parker 
and Warne 


45 


churches and parsonages. But in 1898 there were in all India 
494 churches and parsonages of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, while the total value of its property in Southern 
Asia was 3,607,980 rupees, very much of which had _ been 
purchased with funds not furnished by the Missionary 
Society. 


Truly, the little one has become a thousand. In 1860 
there were only 67 communicants in all India, in 1875 there 
were 2,148, and in 1898 there were 77,963, and in 1905, 110,- 
490. Concerning the numerical expansion of the work, Bishop 

Foss, who had just returned from his official visit, 
Numerical stated before the Missionary Committee in 1898: 
Progress ‘Let me make the most astonishing statement of 

progress in God’s work on earth of which I have any 
personal knowledge. You can find it in the Minutes of the 
Central Conference of India. Let us take the statistics of the 
year 1887, the year of the last official visitation from this 
country before my tour, made by Bishop Ninde, and compare 
them with those of the year I was there, 1898. In 1887 we 
had 4,018 full members; now we have 31,866. The total num- 
ber of our communicants then was 7,323; now we have 77,963. 
That is an increase of tenfold in eleven years. Then we 
had 96 churches; now we have 233. In 1887 we had 313 
Sunday-schools; now we have 2,485. Then we had 8,000 
scholars; now we have 83,229. And all this in eleven years. 
I soberly ask you if you can think of any figures, beginning 
with thousands, where there has been such a percentage of 
increase in any mission of which we have any knowledge, 
or in any part of any country where Methodism has ever 
been planted? The increase from 7 to 70 is far easier than 
from 7,000 to 70,000. After some thirty years of work we 
had the great record which made Dr. Curry declare India 
to be the greatest mission in his lifetime. Now fphose 
thousands have been multiplied six, eight, ten, and even 
fourteenfold. These are the amazing figures gathered in 
that marvelous field.” Since the visit of Bishop Foss, al- 
though famine has devastated all the western part of India, 
requiring the missionaries to devote themselves to caring 


46 


for the bodies of the people, yet more than twenty thousand 
have been added to the Christian community. 

In 1858 there were 41 pupils in school. In 1864 there 

were 1,322. In 1874 there were 7,577 pupils, of whom about 

1,700 were girls, but only about 200 Christians in 

Educational all our schools in India. In 1891 the schools had 

Progress increased to 1,139, and the pupils to 36,346, with 

more than 60,000 in Sunday-schools. In 1898 

there were 1,259 schools, teaching 31,879 scholars of all 

grades. The falling off may be accounted for by the fact 

that less attention was given to non-Christian education on 


REID CHRISTIAN COLLEGE, LUCKNOW 


a 


account of the large number of village converts who had 
been gathered into the church. The rapid growth of the 
community found a number of Christian young men worthy 
of higher education. Hence a college was established at 
Lucknow, known as Reid Christian College. To this was 
added a business department which has been a signal success. 
In 1903 the Government of the Provinces sent representatives 
from every magistrate’s and judge’s court for education in 
business methods and typewriting. It has provided liberal 
aid to this department. Every grade of education is kept up, 
from the original orphanages founded by Dr. Butler, to the 


47 


Anglo-Chinese College in Singapore, and the two colleges in 

Lucknow, whose two noble founders are buried in that city. 

In recognition of the abounding grace of God and His 

marvelous blessings poured through half a century on our 

Missions in Southern Asia and our India Con- 

The Jubilee ference and their offspring amid the islands of 

Year the farther seas, the General Conference has au- 

thorized and the Church at large observes a joy- 

ous “‘ India Jubilee ” celebration, fifty years after the sainted 
William Butler entered populous, polyglot India. 


OBLIGATIONS AND NEEDS 


In view of all these facts what is our responsibility in 
the matter? The obligation rests upon the young people of 
Christ’s kingdom, as well as upon the older mem- 
bers, as speedily as possible to evangelize the 
world. 

India is a vast and varied country. It embraces, not one, 

but many nations. “ Arrange all mankind in a line,” says 

Dr. Chamberlain, “and call the roll, and every 

A Populous fifth or sixth man, woman, or child will answer 
Problem in one of the languages of India.” With a popu- 
lation fourfold as large as that of the United 

States of America, and with ethnological differences as great 

as that among the nations of Europe, it stands out as a 

great strategic field to be won. 

The people of India are a religious, contemplative and 
speculative people. Their leading cults are no crude forms 
that will die out of themselves. Here are 

The Conquest of formulated beliefs and great systems of 
Great Errors philosophy which have held sway for ages. 
Here are profound forms of error which dom- 

inate the masses of the world. Monism, pantheism, dual- 
ism, polytheism, fatalism, animism, and fetishism all grow 
and flourish in this great moral hothouse. Caste, fatalism 
and metempsychosis grip the people with remorseless per- 
sistency. For these reasons India has been termed “ The 
Gibraltar of Missions.” Dr. George Smith has said of it: 


Christian 
Obligation 


48 


“India is the key to all South and Central Asia. The com- 
plete conquest of the Brahman and the Mohammedan of 
India by the Cross will be what the submission of Constan- 
tine was to the Roman Empire.” 

All India is now an open door. No longer does an East 
India Company put the missionaries under a ban. The old 
timid religious policy has failed, and Lord Lawrence, him- 
self not only a soldier and statesman but a devout Chris- 
tian, expressed the opinion that ‘‘ What more stirred up 


FAMINE ORPHANAGE, PHALERA 


the Indian Mutiny than any other thing was the habitual 
cowardice of Great Britain as to her own re- 

Entering ligion.” The cumulative influence of missions 
a Vast during the past century has made the latter 
Open Door hundredfold more successful than the first half. 
Recently Sir Charles Elliot, Lieutenant of Bengal, 

said: “There is unquestionably an undercurrent working 
among the higher classes in India toward Christianity, in 
spite of all the open manifestations against it.” In parts of 

the field, from among the more than fifty million depressed 


49 


GuaHdaHS V LOOHLIM daaHSs,, “IVAILSAA NAHLVAH V 


ce 


people, whole communities and tribes are ready to come 
over. The recent unparalleled famines have humbled, and 
Christian sympathy and philanthropy have softened, the 
hearts of these grateful people, so that in many 
Influence places, as in Gujarat, Rajputana, and Central In- 
of Famines dia, thousands are now accessible, and could be 
brought over if there were pastors and teachers 
to care for them. There are “regions beyond” which are 
awaiting a “forward movement,” but “ expansion” means 
expenditure, and funds are inadequate even for the work in 
hand. One hundred thousand Christians in our own Church, 
nearly all of them untutored villagers, call loudly for teach- 
ers and evangelists. This is but a glimpse of the responsi- 
bilities that rest upon the Church. 


There are three paramount needs of the hour. Bishop 
Foss saw the urgent need of workers when, upon his return 
from his inspection of the work in India, he officially re- 
ported to the Missionary Committee in November, 1898: 

“Now let me alarm you, as I am myself alarmed, 
Need of by the statement that thirteen of our best mission- 
Workers ary workers in Northern India have been there more 
than thirty-five years each. I have a little picture 
of four of these workers who together have rendered one 
hundred and forty-three years of service there.” (These 
were the Revs. Henry Maztsell, Peachy T. Wilson, Thomas 
S. Johnson and Thomas J. Scott.) Since then great men 
and women have fallen. The spiritual Wilson “ceased at 
once to work and live”; the veteran Humphrey, whose 
career covered the history of the mission, has retired; the 
mighty Parker has been “translated”; and leaders like 
Knowles and Messmore, Mansell and Scott, and our Senior 
Bishop Thoburn, the greatest Nestor of them all, have wearied 
under the load. The faithful Mrs. Johnson and the peerless 
Miss Thoburn have passed away. Who will volunteer to fill 

up the depleted ranks? 

There is great need of money. Our Church in India is 
largely made up of converts from the depressed classes, who 
are, perhaps, the poorest people in the world, many of them 


51 


not earning more than four cents a day, and living “ from 
hand to mouth,” with but little in the hand. Although 
taught to give, and willing to give, yet their aggregate 
possible contributions are utterly inadequate to cover 
Need of the needs of the work. But men and money are the 
Money result of an adequately compelling cause. “In the 
year 1887, the Church Missionary Society,” says its 
secretary, Mr. Eugene Stock, “under special circumstances, 
came to the resolution, in the teeth of its finance board, to 
refuse no candidate on financial grounds who appeared to 

be God-called.” 
The result was that in thirteen years the staff was 


trebled and the money was found. A spiritual, aggres- 
sive Church will lack neither men nor money for its foreign 
missions. 


There is constant need of co-operation. The government 
at home recruits the army for the field and supplies the army 
in the field. No campaign can be long or successfully con- 

ducted without “the sinews of war.” In the 
Need of conquest of the world of India, those who go 
Co-operation and those who stay should all work together. 
The law is, “Go, or Send.” In all the great 
Southern Asia mission field there are only about one hundred 
and twenty-five male missionaries of the Board on “ the far- 
flung battle line.” A million and a half of young people are 
members of, or associated with, our great home Church. 
Here is intelligence, and affiliation in spiritual service. 
What a mighty co-operative force is here to be utilized in 

the great work of saving India! 

The tasks that await us are far greater than we at first 
saw. But our victories embolden us to believe that they are 

not insuperable. The Church will grow accustomed 

Larger to think larger thoughts and devise more adequate 

Thoughts things for a world’s redemption. A great propor- 

and Plans tion of that world’s population and a still larger 

measure of its religious potencies and powers lie 

under the Southern Cross in the fair and fertile lands of 
India. 


52 


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wre rte 
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etter tone 


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